Suffolk Can Still Amend City's New Spending Plan

SUFFOLK — The city manager says the budget was difficult to approve because of real estate tax cuts and employee pay raises.

Suffolk City Manager Steve Herbert, reflecting this week on why it took city officials so long to pass the $371 million budget, said he never realized how badly City Council members wanted to cut real estate taxes until a meeting in March.

Weeks of wrangling about the budget kept Herbert on the hot seat for not recommending that homeowners receive more of a real estate tax break and for insisting that city workers receive minimum pay raises of 6 percent.

Council members told Herbert during the retreat in March that they wanted a 15 cent real estate tax cut to offset real estate reassessments that increased an average of 28.6 percent. In April, Herbert frustrated some council members by presenting a new spending plan that included only a 7 cent real estate tax cut.

"I am bound by law to give them my best budget," he said. "I also showed them how to get to 15 cents."

But the list of how to make a 15-cent cut work included not funding "sacred cows nobody wanted to touch," said Councilwoman Linda Johnson. One of the sacred cows was the city's new Initiative on Youth, a program designed to curb the city's recent spate of youth violence.

Others sacred cows: new positions in the police, fire and planning departments, $2.75 million of local school money and a curbside recycling program.

After weeks of number crunching, council members this week approved a 12 cent cut, from 1.06 per $100 value to 94 cents. Most homeowners, however, can still expect to pay more in real estate taxes because of the soaring reassessments.

Another hurdle to pass the budget revolved around how large of a pay raise to give city employees. Herbert argued for a minimum 6 percent raise to bring Suffolk employees more in line with what city workers earn elsewhere. Some council members argued scaling the raise back to 5 percent, which would save $380,000.

The city spent $30,000 for a compensation study, which led to an average of 9.7 percent raise last year for police officers, firefighters and dispatchers. This year Herbert lobbied for a minimum raise of 6 percent for all other city employees, which the study recommended.

"It was a one-time, catch-up jump...," Herbert said. "We were way overdue."

On Wednesday, council members scaled the raises back from 6 percent to 5 percent.

Council members Johnson and Vice Major Leroy Bennett said the budget could get amended even after July 1. Two new council members will come aboard July 5, replacing Mayor Bobby Ralph and Councilman Calvin Jones, who lost elections this spring.

"Anything can happen..." Herbert said. "But for what... We got the biggest tax cut and the lowest tax rate." *